January 15-19th, NAPLES; A great time was had by all

We arrive at the Naples City Dock and Mooring Field about 2:30 in the afternoon. You are required to pump out your holding tank before you tie up to a mooring field so to the dock we went.  We had quite an audience of tourists who had wondered down the dock so I was happy that the show we put on made us look like we really knew what we were doing.  The marina is in a perfect spot for boaters.  You can walk to Tin City, the old Naples shopping area, the main shopping area on 5th street and the beach. All of the places a tourist would want to see.  A very nice market and West Marine are also within walking distance but stores such as Walmart, publix, etc are not. Only a few hours were spent working on the boat. Most of our time was spent visiting with friends and neighbors who are Naples Snow Birds.  On Monday we spent the day with Pete and Jan. This was a real treat for both tom and I.  We buddy boated with them from Chicago to Tennessee at the beginning of our trip almost four years ago.  They are living on their boat in a very quiet and peaceful marina outside of Naples. Because they have a car we enjoyed an all day tour of Marco Island, Everglade City and Goodland. We were also able to re provision at Walmart and Tom was able to get yet another part for the blankety blank blank head that he has been working on for two weeks!  On Tuesday we took our next door neighbors from Burns Harbor, Cliff and Joice and the in laws of Tom's niece Betsy for an afternoon ride on the gulf.  Both couples are wintering in Naples.  The gulf was smooth and the day warm, a great day for a cruise. The dolphins danced around the boat as we exited and entered the harbor to the Atlantic, which thrilled the gals.  Tuesday evening we had dinner with Betsy's in-laws, Kent and Elizabeth. Wednesday my neighbor Joice and I shopped while Tom worked on the head again.  Late afternoon Tom and I packed a picnic dinner and headed to the beach to watch the sunset. I had a great day, Tom not so good as the head is still not working!  On Thursday we had to leave the mooring ball because you are only allowed a four day stay.  Luckily enough a slip opened up and the kind gals allowed us to move to the slip for the night for the same price as a mooring ball.  It was great to be in a slip with a walkway, electricity and large shower facilities. Peanut was thrilled. As soon as she realized we were tying up to a dock she started to squeal and jump around!  Dogs are so smart.  I had a great night sleep Thursday as I didn't have to get up to turn the geni on in the wee hours of the morning. On Thursday I wandered around a bit trying to find a cheap hair cut, (no luck), and Tom worked on a few of the jobs on his list and then we headed over to Cliff and Joyce's condo for a cookout. The six of us had a great time sharing stories, great steaks, and good wine. 

Sunset over the Naples Fishing Pier

                                                         

                                                                    Naples Fishing Pier

Sunset on Naples beach next to the fishing pier

The marina office and fuel dock at Naples City Marina

The area at the end of the city dock & Marina. There were shops, restuarants and condos here.

This little fellow sat 6 inches from my foot the entire time I was eating my dinner on the beach.

The condominium complex with shops and restuarants where Clliff and Joyce are staying

They had a great view of the river from their balacony

January 15th - A stressful trip to Naples

We had now officially ran out of ICW to follow and the ocean was pretty choppy 2-3 footers but nothing we couldnt handle. It was another beautiful day weather wise and we were excited about getting to Naples.  About an hour out Tom went below to take a shower.  Soon afterwards I hear sirans, yes sirans! I turned to find a sheriffs boat coming at us with lights and sirans going.  I put the boat in neutral and started yelling for Tom.  Of course he couldn't hear me from the shower, Ugh!  When the sheriffs boat pulled along side I politely greeted him and asked if there was a problem. His response was very official. You did not pay last nights mooring field fee of $13.00.  The city wants to prosecute!!!!!  Now I am really yelling for Tom, still no answer!  Of course with the 2-3 foot waves we are now sideways and rocking badly! You would have thought Tom would have come out to check on what the %#@&;* was going on!!  I apologized profusely and indicated that my husband was supposed to call in and have an extra night put on our credit card.  His response was, well he didn't. I asked if I could pay now. His answer, if you have cash.  I ran below still screaming at Tom. He yells a few not nice words and adds :What is going on?"  I yelled back that the sheriff is after us!  I with my $20.00 bill run back up with Tom behind rapped in a towel! Now Tom is going to get involved, giving me direction on how to get the money to the sheriff as both of our boats are rocking horribly! In an attempt to pull up beside us for the %&#@ $20.00 bill he hit our boat head on!  His response, I didn't mean to do that!  So he has his money but I am really unhappy, as I had asked Tom to call in and have them put another day on our credit card. Yes, they had our credit card information and choose not to just add another day.  Angrily I put the boat in gear to get out of the sideways waves and avoid to crab pots that were directly ahead of us. The problem? We were towing our dingy!  The waves had pushed the dingy up to the boat and the line underneath it. When I put it in gear the rutters cut the line and the dingy was no longer attached and the line it was tied to is under the boat. Soooo, Tom puts on a pair of jocky underwear, not sure why not a bathing suit, and a life jacket. He has a knife in his teeth and goes down to the swim platform. He is kneeling on the swim platform holding on to the boat with one hand and trying to cut the line from underneath the boat with the other as waves are crashing over him.  I really should have gotten a photo of that!  He then re-ties the dingy and I keep my fingers crossed that we can move forward!  All because of $13.00 dollars. We kept a close eye on our gages for quite a while but all seemed to be fine, thankfully.  I went back to driving and Tom went below to wash the soap off.

January 12-15 Fort Myers Beach, the good, the bad and the frustrating!

The ICW from Punta Gorda to Fort Myers Beach was narrow and slow but the scenary continues to fill the time well.  The ICW ends near Fort Myers so we were again using our charting skills along with the help of two friends who were riding with us for the day. One of them from Fort Myers.  As you approach Fort Myers the ICW connects with the Ockeechobee Waterway.  Certain that we were not going that way I put in waypoints to take us across a bay and into Matanzas Harbor to the mooring field.  The water was wonderful and the sun warm so our friends were sunning on the front deck.  All was going well until we realized there was a problem with our approach. The bridge ahead was fixed and to low and the water color was changing, not a good sign for depth.  Our friend from Fort Myers indicated we were going the wrong way to go under the bridge. A quick recheck of charts while in neutral indicated my flaw in planning.  We were supposed to follow the path toward lake Ockeechobee then turn off into a marked channel behind Estero Island.  Sooooo,  we turned around and and corrected the error. Even thought the charts showed enough water I was thankful we caught the error BEFORE we hit the shallows, and a little unhappy with myself for the misguided plotting.   We were excited about Fort Myers beach for two reasons, we had not been there before and we had a guide with a car!!
There were two sections to the mooring field and the first was filled because it was close to the dingy dock.  We ended up quite a ways from the dingy dock but away from the noisy bridge traffic.  Our first stop was Bonita Bills, recommended in Skipper Bobs book.  A couple was providing the music at the bar/restaurant and it was great.  It was definitely an over 60 crowd, filling the dance floor and overflowing to the area around their tables. We had a ball watching and dancing with people our age who were having so much fun. We were excited, a great start to our visit we thought!  We enjoyed our guided tour by car provided by our friend and I especially enjoyed the fine art fair that we attended but that's where the good ended.  The mooring field is run by Matanzas Inn and it it was definitely not a priority for them. Most of our questions, including those about the area could not be answered. Tom and I walked down to Fort Myers Beach, only four blocks away, then took a trolley down to the end of Estero Island and back. No one seemed to want to give out friendly information and the people on the city trolley were not very nice to each other. When we got to the end of the island the driver announced it was the end of the road. I smiled and explained that we were just riding round trip to see the island. He quickly retorted with a "well you gotta pay again", so I jumped up to put our fifty cents in again.  Our plan to move on to Naples was delayed by a day because one of our kayaks broke loose and floated away overnight.  We spent the next day hunting for it by dingy throughout the area but had no luck.  While making one last ditch effort to find it we ran out of gas in the dingy. Now we are trying to row against the current and a good wind to get back to the boat! Happy campers we were not! Another couple saw us struggling and towed us back to our boat.  Needless to say I was upset about the kayak loss. Alas all ended well as our good friend John surprised us with a new kayak he found on craigs list! 

                                      Passing Fort Myers beach on our way to the mooring field

                                                                           Fort Myers

Sunset from our mooring ball at Fort Myers

January 10-12 Punta Gorda

Our stay at Punta Gorda; As we approached the mooring field we came upon about 30 small sailboats in the area we had to cross. There were several larger boats with them as well as smaller runabouts.  Thankfully they passed by before we arrived. We were the only boat in the mooring field which surprised us for thirteen dollars a night.  It was a short dingy ride to the marina dingy dock and the marina was buzzing with activity.  A few of those one man sailboats were coming in. some with an escort boat, now I was really curious. There were sailboats tied up all along the small dock, lots of people, and several large tents along the shore. Obviously it was some type of regatta, I thought but why do so many of the boats have escort boats?  We found a small spot and tied up.  As we passed the sailboats they had names of countries on the side of them and there were wheel chairs at the end of some of the docks. The marina was hosting the National Para-Olympic single man sailboat races!  How awesome is that?  I was really excited and in awe of the strength, agility and attitude these men and women had.  I was also impressed with the ingenuity that went into the retrofitting of these boats.  One morning we witnessed one of the sailors in his wet suit scoot off the dock and into the water and proceed to scrub down the outside of his boat. It just goes to show you that you are only as handicapped as you allow yourself to be!
We tootled around Punta Gorda on the free loaner bikes the marina had, checking out the downtown area and fisherman's village. Fisherman's Village is filled with shops and resturants. It was an enjoyable stay, the staff at the marina are wonderful and everything is in walking distance or a bike ride away.

                                            One of the sailboats competing in the Paraolympics

                                        Be sure to look closely at the adaptations made for the sailors

                                                All the flags from the nations competing

                                                One of the bridges that we had to wait for

                                                 Waiting for the swing bridge to open

                                                      All by ourselves in the mooring field

                                                                 The USA team boat

                                                        A competitor and his escort

January 9th - Sarasota to Punta Gorda

Back to basics; we left the resort marina bright and early on Monday the 9th of January.  Another morning that I was thankful we had a new chartplotter. The sun was bright and directly in our eyes so Tom watched closely for crab pots as I kept my eyes on the track line which took us back to the ICW exactly the way we came in. Cruising down the ICW we were in awe of the number of homes, hotels, etc. along the way that had empty slips and docks. There seemed to be hundreds if not thousands of them. Tom was really bothered by it and I wondered why people didn't put a sign at the end of their dock advertising that you could tie up for a small fee.  We anchored in a cove that had some very nice homes along the shoreline. We shared the water with a sailboat and a few dolphins. The evening was beautiful the water like glass so we did a little fishing while watching the sunset.  We hoped to pull into Punta Gorda early enough to spend some time in town so we were up and at um early.  There were several bridges ahead of us that had to be raised for us to pass through.  We arrived at the first and realized it was on a schedule and we were 15 minutes early. This gave me an opportunity to to practice my piloting skills, keeping Laughter in the middle of the channel. Once we arrived at Charlette Harbor and turned in towards Punta Gorda we realized we realized it was 22 miles from the mouth of Charlotte Harbor to the mooring field. No worries, no schedule!  Thankfully we had great directions from the marina as the markers into the area had been knocked out during Hurricane Charlie and never replaced. 

Sunset on the cove anchorage

dolphins playing

Four great days in a luxurious marina in Sarasota

On Thursday, January 5th we pulled up to the T-dock assignment at the Hyatt Regency Resort Hotel in Sarasota.  It is a small marina with the Hyatt on one side the Ritz Carlton on the other and private high rise condomininiums directly in front of us. A tremendous thank-you extended to our friend Captain Rich for arranging our stay!!  We had access to the pool, hot tub, fitness room and because we were on the T-dock we had our very own large patio with chairs provided.  We had a ball in Sarasota. We rode our bikes downtown to the shops and to a motorcycle rally held called Thunder On The Bay.  We walked peanut to a nearby beach to watch a sunset and hunt shells.  Our friend Chris came in by car from nearby Bradenton and took us to Mote Aquarium and shopping for some needed supplies and with the return of warm weather we enjoyed sitting in the sunshine on our own little deck visiting with the curious who came to talk with us.  Tom spent one afternoon with a local charter captain, Captain Mike.  Captain Mike helped us get our depth finder set correctly and successfully reprogram the alarm for it. He walked us through the charts giving us anchorage ideas from Sarasota to the keys and he was took a look at our generator to see if it was the selenoid switch as suspected that prevented it from starting.  As it turned out the generator started on every try which was a relief to us but we are still going to order another celenoid just in case.

Tarpon Springs to Sarasota

We arose bright and early on Wednesday, January 4th wanting to pull out of Tarpon by 9am.  We checked the tides on a local website and felt we should be good to go.  We had a short side channel to pass through before reaching the main channel on the Anclote and out to the ICW.  I saw that we were stirring up mud so we inched forward. Unfortunately we still found the bottom.  The current was strong so in a few minutes we were afloat again.  It was apparent that we were not getting through so it was back to the dock. The dockmaster indicated that he felt the storms and high winds the day before affected the water levels. This time I checked the tide app on my IPAD!! The morning peak tide for Tarpon would be at 10:10 am, so at  10:05 we tried again, I stood on the bow this time, watching the water as we crept through the same area. Success!  Exiting the Anclote was much quieter and calmer than our entry.  No boats speeding passed us.  No boats speeding towards us!  No boats at all, must be to cool for the locals. The sky's were clear and the sun bright but definitely cool enough that we had to keep the plastics down for comfort on the fly bridge. We had heard there were quite a few bridges on the ICW and that for sail boats and some power boats having to wait for each bridge to open was annoying.  We passed under nine bridges today with the lowest being 23 ft at center. Since we need 19 feet to clear we had no waits today. Much of the day was spent at idle speed as required, but no matter, as it gave us more time to gawk at the mansions, interesting homes, islands etc.  Our search for  a suitable anchorage began about 3p.m. We chose Boca Ciega Bay because of its size and proximity to the ICW.  Can you say twice in one day!! We entered the bay to anchor in the six foot charted white water as directed in Skipper Bobs book. Although the chartplotter and paper chart indicated we were there the depth finder said 18ft so Tom kept moving forward and guess what?  We found the bottom again!! This time we were stuck. We had been pulling the dingy behind so Tom used it to pull us back into the charted area.  We anchored for the night an hour and a half after we started!  Lesson learned, believe your charts and chartpotter!  The sunset over the bay was pretty and the lights from all of the buildings made for a beautiful evening, unfortunately it was to cold to sit out on the aft deck and enjoy it. Finally settled in I attempted to start the generator without success. Down in the engine room went Tom. Nothing a little bungy chord wouldn't fix temporarily! Two things to make sure you have lots of on board, bungy chords and duck tape!

                                           a sample of some of the large homes we saw

                                                 sunset over the town at our anchorage